Belgian menu

Tuesday, 4 October 2011

It’s lunchtime across Europe, the almost sacrosanct pause in the day. For anglo-saxon readers used to non-stop life, in much of Europe many shops close, kids go home from school and those in offices are prone to long lunch breaks and a glass of wine. Not everywhere of course but if you do want to stop for a meal then check out the Centrum Ronde van Vlaanderen in Oudenaarde, Belgium. Good food and cycling go together, whether for basic fuel or as a means to sample local produce that you ride past but this takes things to a new level. It’s a museum that celebrates De Ronde, as the Tour of Flanders is often known. But it has a restaurant too and you can see the menu above. Note the dishes. There’s Spaghetti Boonenaise, Croque Masseur and Pollo Bettini.

Click on the image above to get the full version. You’ll see “prologue drinks”, aka aperitifs. There are the main dishes in the Grote Musette (“big feed bag”) like the Museeuw fish stew, since Johan Museeuw is from the coast. There’s also the Flandrien Lasagna which makes you wonder if they include a small layer of mud and cow shit, for the authentic Flemish race experience includes a mouthful of dirt ejected from the wheel of the rider in front.

Once you’re done there’s room for an Irish Coffee only here it’s the Coffee Kelly in honour of the Irish hardman. There’s a very un-Flemish Chiapuccino too, as well as Tchmilke, a play on Flanders winner Andrei Tchmil and milke more commonly known in Belgium as lait russe (“russian milk”) or white coffee.

It’s all fun but I hope the food is good as the novelty factor has worn off in the time it took me to write. It’s not the only cycling-themed restaurant around, I’m sure other Belgian entrepreneurs have similar menus as the country is cycling-crazy. But it’s not just Belgium, there are a couple of similar similar restaurants in France too where the first course is a prologue and so on.

Way cool, we’ll check it out next year when we’re up there. The small snack bar atop Madonna del Ghisallo has sandwiches named after some of the great cyclists. Nothing special food quality-wise but a nice touch nonetheless.

I was at centre rvv over the summer. Great place, the museum is worth a walk round but the food is brilliant. Though they are tight on there serving times, we nearly missed cause of cycling for too long. Proper hearty food and great beer just what you need when youve been riding like a true flandarian. The pun tastic menue made me laugh too.

Indeed, shops closing and having a decent lunch only holds for the Southern part of Europe (which starts culturewise around Belgium), in the Netherlands, Germany and Scandinavia lunch will be poor like in the UK. Anyways, nice post nonetheless!